Three botanicals and a tequila cask is a deliberately narrow starting point. Wave Distil double distils juniper, lime peel and cucumber, then puts the result into casks that previously held tequila, and bottles it at 40% ABV. A short recipe leaves room for the wood to be heard, which is exactly the intention: with twelve botanicals competing, a cask this distinctive would simply disappear.

The gin underneath is bright and green. Lime peel gives a sharp citric top, cucumber a cool watery freshness that reads more as texture than as flavour, and juniper the resinous line that holds them together. Over that, the tequila cask adds a woody character quite unlike an ex-whisky barrel: drier, a little vegetal, with a faint agave-adjacent sweetness that meets the cucumber rather than fighting it. The two green elements in the recipe and the green edge of the wood end up pointing the same direction, which is why the ageing feels considered rather than bolted on. The palate is smooth, the wood arriving mid-palate and holding through a dry finish. The gin has been awarded a gold medal.

Because the cask is the point, do not bury it. A plain tonic works, but soda works better, leaving more room for the wood to show. Lime peel keeps faith with the recipe, while a thin ribbon of cucumber flatters the cask instead. Between the two, the cucumber is the more interesting choice precisely because it points at the wood rather than at the citrus. It is also worth trying neat over one large cube before mixing anything at all, since barrel-aged gins reveal the most at full strength and this one has a cask worth meeting directly. Avoid sweet mixers entirely, which turn the agave note cloying. It closes woody, citric and cool.